Tuesday, February 21, 2017

I shook up my schedule a little this past week. I found my mind slipping a lot and falling into the same fog I experienced at the end of 2016, so I tried to remedy the situation with said shake up.

I've gobbled through three books in the past week. To be fair, one book was 1/2 way done and the other was about 1/4 done, but I gobbled them nonetheless. It's lit a book-loving fire in my heart that I forgot I'd lost. It's also helped kickstart my writing again. I was having troubles with my Solstice Scents haul post, which was why it took so long to get up. I couldn't get the words to flow and my heart just wasn't in it. I'm still in a bit of a writer's rut, but now instead of blurry ideas I get more concrete shapes and sounds. Here's hoping the book I'm currently reading breaks down the rest of these walls!

I've concentrated on melting a lot of my larger quantities of wax that I've already reviewed on the blog. It's nice seeing my stash slowly shrink. It's hard not reaching for new-to-me scents just so I can have something to write about on the blog. I realized that it would really show if I kept forcing myself to write just to meet some imaginary post quota I kept setting for myself.

The weather finally warmed up enough to melt the snow and ice that's prevented Michael and I from going on our bike rides. Of course all this warm weather has brought in wind, so the bike rides we have taken have been much shorter than we would like. Better than nothing, though. I had a laughable moment while hanging with C on Friday. "The wind was really bad so we only went 10 miles on our bike ride yesterday." C could only look at me with an incredulous expression until I realized how snooty I sounded and laughed.

We still have Zelda The Lovebug. She'll be with us for another few days before her owners pick her up. Can you believe we've gone 6 days in 2017 without any pets in the house? Not counting the Cotton Balls (hamsters) of course. In a few weeks we're going to watch yet another poochie for two months!! The obsessively clean part of my brain is screaming at all the fur build up. LOL!

Speaking of Cotton Balls... Michael and I are horrible pet owners. I feel like every pet that comes through our house will leave feeling very confused about what their names are and what kind of animal they are. Each pet gets called a variety of, well, pet names based off their looks, fluffyness, and personality. Zelda is a lovebug who is secretly a cat. She's also been called a Cuddle Bug, Mrs. Spinnies (when she plays she twirls in circles with her ears flat on her head, like bully breeds do), Girlie, Beautiful, Old Man (she has long fur that sticks our of her ears), and Waggle Butt. Pebbles was a Mobile Fuzz Loaf/Echolocator (she would wander around the house yowling so much we joked that she was using it to find her way around). The hamsters are Fluffybutts, $30 Hamster Steaks (long story), Muffin Tops, and most recently Cotton Balls. Muffin Top and Cotton Balls came about from their little sleepy ball they form when they sleep.... or while they're eating... or when they're sitting still. Basically we call animals any and all names under the sun except their actual name.

Okay, it's not quite that dramatic, but we definitely call them a bunch of nicknames.

I think that covers it for this little update. I'm still on the fence for writing about my planner stickers. I have so much to say about it, but I'm afraid it will all come out in a large jumble of words that make little to no sense.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

This has been a long time coming. I originally wanted to make this order in late Spring/early Summer 2016, but it turns out the whole reason I was making my order was a Winter only scent! Snowshoe Pass, why did you make me wait so long?!

While I was on the site I decided to try out some other fragrances in eau de parfum form that I quite enjoyed in oil extrait form. I learned from Rose Mallow Cream that oil extrait and eau de parfum behave very differently once on the skin, and sometimes not in the way you expected or wanted. Perhaps a newbie lesson, one I needed to relearn, but a lesson nonetheless.

I placed my order on January 11th and it shipped... on January 11th. Less than four hours after I paid I already had a shipping notification. Talk about a fast TAT!

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Warning: This post contains slightly NSFW pictures. And by slightly, I mean very.

I get to wake up to this cuddle bug every morning. This is Zelda, the poochie I've been watching since January 30th. Her owners will pick her up on February 24th. Pebbles was picked up on the 28th of January. I miss that little meowing furball, just like I'll miss this slightly larger snuggling furball when she's gone.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Cold Sniff: 4.5/5 I had to take a moment and clean up some coffee I spit out after reading my initial notes on this from my haul post. I'm happy to say that I no longer smell poopy diapers when sniffing at this. LOL Instead I get a pleasantly sweet lavender scent with a hint of detergent.

Warm Sniff: 4.5/5 No surprises once melted. The detergent lacks that bite normal detergent scents have, making it a very nice hey-time-to-clean-your-house type scent.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the living room, some of the hallway, and most of the kitchen/dining area.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours of scent from half of a scent shot.

Cold Sniff: 4.5/5 Deliciously sweet and indulgent marshmallow cake with a healthy heaping of sweet lavender buds. Add in the sweet ghost of pink sugar and that's this blend. I can't say I picked up much on serendipity.

Warm Sniff: 4.5/5 Not many changes once melted. The serendipity became ever so slightly noticeable, but it did not change the overall scent.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room.

Melting Power: 4/5 A quarter of a cookie lasted for a little under seven hours.

Repurchase: Probably not. I have other blends that turn out so similar to this I can't imagine buying this specific blend again. It was a very fun experiment, though!

Sunday, February 5, 2017

The person I see when I look through a mirror is not the person I want to be. I see a bitter, self centered person. I see a hypocrite. I see a chameleon, someone so afraid of rocking the boat that she will change her entire persona depending on the group she's hanging around. I see someone afraid to challenge the world around her, unwilling to challenge herself, unable to rock the boat. I see someone full of that monster called pride, convinced she is somehow better than those around her while still playing into those petty games she claims to hate.

These character flaws are not things I'm unfamiliar with. Through the years I've convinced myself that I'm entitled to these flaws. I was a social outcast growing up, so it's only natural that I be bad at social interactions. It's completely acceptable for me to go days on end shutting my friends out with nary a word of what is happening or why I've started ignoring them. It's totally okay to stonewall people without a chance of closure or to explain why I might be upset with them. Because I have been mistreated in the past, it is okay to discredit any and all relationships I have. Because someone has wronged me in the past, I get to lord it over their heads whenever it is convenient to me. Even as I loudly claimed to myself and those closest to me that I was working on my flaws, I clung to them as if they were trophies I had earned because of some arbitrary trial I had been through. Even when others pointed these flaws out to me, I discredited their words because they had their own flaws they were holding on to. While their flaws may still be there, it shouldn't have lessened the meaning of their observations.

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Welcome to the February edition of Band of Bloggers! You're probably getting tired of winter already as we start this new month. Maybe your thoughts are already turning towards spring, or maybe your all about Valentine's at the moment. Hearts and roses, chocolates and cards, and special someones making you smile . . . With all that love floating around, our question this month is quite simple.

What scent are you *loving* at the moment?

It can be anything from wax to perfume to body care to. . . whatever!

I have absolutely fallen in love with layering two perfumes I picked up recently: Solstice Scents Snowshoe Pass and White Fox. One is a sweet and sultry vanilla scent while the other adds in a woody moss to the mix. I happened across a mix of the two quite on accident (ie applying a different scent later in the day before the first had fully disappeared) and fell in love with how they complimented each other. I haven't posted my Solstice Scents haul yet as I'm still writing it up, but I couldn't help but write a little about it here. :)

We hope you'll join the fun and leave your own answer in the comments below.

Also, don't forget to visit these Band of Blogger blogs to help support the blogger community!